Flemish demons

Two Flemish paintings involving demons, witches and the like.

The first is at Horta, Belgium, on 25 March 2019: a Temptation of Saint Anthony, "Flemish School 17th century, old attribution to David Ryckaert III", estimated at 1,000 to 1,500 Euro.

It contains many of the typical elements of such paintings, as can be seen in the works of Teniers, Ryckaert, or Saftleven. We have a demon riding a pig, and carrying a type of bucket or small cauldron (referring again to witchcraft) as his helmet. There is a horse's skull, another skull with a tail (or is it a blonde braid?), and at the bottom left another skulled demon; and there is the fiddler, a strange combination of a a commedia dell'arte dwarflike figure with a chicken foot. That last figure seems to be the most original, I can find many musicians in such Temptation paintings, but none similar to this one.

The painting seems to be an original composition or a copy after an unknown work, as I haven't found a better painted similar work nor an engraving it may be based on. The estimate is probably about right, as the topic is always popular and intriguing, even if the work itself is not of the highest quality.

The second is Westport, USA, on 31 March 2019: the Gates of Hell, "Flemish School 16th or 17th century", estimated at $1,500 to $2,500 but in a very poor condition.

This one is harder to decipher. It has elements of a Gates of Hell, but no Jesus nor humans. It has elements of a Witches sabbath, but the most obvious "witch" has wings, which is not common for depictions of witches and points more to a demon or fallen angel. It has elements of a Saint Anthony (the three headed dog strongly reminds me of a similar one in a Temptation by Teniers), but lacks the central figure. It seems likely that the painting is incomplete, even possibly missing parts between the two planks, but also on the left side and the bottom.

The work reminds me most of the demonic visions by Cornelis Saftleven, but isn't refined enough to be by him. Still, it is a very unusual painting, full of originality, and worthy of a thorough restoration.

UPDATE: sold for $5,000!

UPDATE 2: The left half of it, cleaned and reframed, was sold at Sotheby's in 2022 as Neapolitan (though possibly influenced by Saftleven) and sold for $10K. No idea what happened to the other half.

Copy of the Carracci pietà attributed to Teniers

Campo & Campo, from Belgium, sells on 23 May 2017 as lot 201 an "attributed to David Teniers II" copy of the Pietà by Annibale Carracci, estimated at 8,000 to 10,000 Euro.

It is a very good copy, at about the same dimensions as the original. The work was well-known to Teniers, as it was one of the highlights of the collection of Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria, now one of the main origins of the beautiful collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.

 

Teniers has painted the work a number of times in his depictions of part of the collection of the Archduke, and has also made a smaller drawn copy of it for his illustrated catalogie of the collection from 1660, the first illustrated art catalogue ever (and a book which is, al things considered, reasonably affordable nevertheless, at some £2,000 for a complete original copy with 246 engravings)

But has he also made lifesize copies of any works in the collection? I can't find a reference to other such copies by Teniers, but of course it is possible, and he was certainly both capable and in a position to make this copy.

There are some remarkable differences though (even though the work is clearly painted straight from the original and not from some engraving), most noticeable is the added tableware in the middle right. Also clear is that the copy is slightly wider, showing the Mary and Christ and not the slightly cut-off version of Carracci. It almost looks as if whoever painted this copy, wanted to make a "better" version, avoiding the emptiness of the shelf and the crampedness of the original. By slightly changing the position of Mary, Teniers (or the artist) brought the two protagonists closer together as well. So while he increased the emotionality in this regard, he lessened the same emotion by adding some breathing space at the sides and especially at the top, and by adding some more (very restrained) eye candy on the shelf.

While to our modern eyes it probably doesn't make this really better than the original, it makes it different and not really worse either, which is an achievement in itself (it is much easier to ruin such a composition when one starts fiddling with it). So whoever did this (and assuming there isn't an actual Carracci version with this exact composition) must have been a very accomplished artist as well.

Even as an old, good, anonymous copy of this work, evidence of the habit at the time of copying the best Italian works to use as exercise at the moment and inspiration afterwards, it should be worth the estimate.

If it can be proven that it really is the work of Teniers, it should probably be at least 20,000 Euro though, and probably more. It would be great to see it displayed in Vienna next to the original!

"17th c. Northern School" is a copy after Teniers

Prunier, from France, sells on 13 November 2016 as lot 158 a "Northern School, 17th century" Gardener, a small panel (21 by 19cm) with the engraving it is based on, estimated at 1,500 to 2,000 Euro.

Many similar works can be found, most either an allegory of April or Spring (though one by Sebastiaen Vrancx is, incorrectly I think, given as an allegory of Autumn at the RKD: surely the leaves on the trees are spring-like, not autumn-like?; I added another Vrancx, this time described as Spring, as comparison) or as a moralistic mocking of working people.

The engraving has the text "Scaves ce qui rend le jardinier Gregoire, Si robuste, et content de son petit destin, c'est parce qu'il a soin de se donner à boire, autant et plus souvent qu'aux plantes du jardin", meaning something like "Know what makes the gardener Gregory, so robust and happy with his little fate; it's because he takes care to give himself to drink, as much and more often still than the plants in the garden". "Gregoire/Gregory" is obviously simply used to rhyme with "boire"...

What the auction house doesn't say, and is invisible on their small  images, is that the engraving is based on a Teniers painting. This could have saved me most work that went into this blog post :-)

Teniers has made many similar images of workers, beggars, madmen, ... shown full-length with a small bit of landscape beyond them; usually moralistic, sometimes more realistic, always interesting. The above is the original of the work for sale, and a similar gardener by him, supposedly an allegory of spring.

The painting for sale is one of many copies after Teniers, and is charming but not particularly good or rare. It will struggle to get the estimate probably.

Two of the five "Senses", after Teniers

Binoche et Giquello sell, through Drouot, on 15 January 2016 two paintings from the "Atelier of David Teniers" estimated at 400 to 600 Euro.

While the first one is correctly described as an "allegory of smell", the second is apparently not recognised as the accompanying "allegory of touch". It seems a bit optimistic to put this in the Teniers atelier, even though that had a rather large production of varying quality: but as two old works after Teniers, the estimate seems on the conservative side.

The "Touch" is a copy after the above Teniers (from the Guildhall Art Gallery in London), but without the decor and with the glee on the face of the old woman replaced by a more concerned expression (probably due to the lack of skill of the copier). The differences in colour and details may indicate a few stations between the original and the copy, not some work straight from the workshop.

I couldn't find a version of the "smell" that was equally close to the one for sale, but paintings like the above show the similarity with the works of Teniers anyway. It is quite possible that an original series of the five senses with the same woman in them existed, and that the "smell" for sale here is a reminder of how the original may have looked. 

One can wonder if other Teniers' paintings, like the above two from the National Gallery featuring a very similar older woman, aren't also part of series of the senses (in this case, taste and hearing?). The above two are not connected in the National Gallery website (even though they came from the same collection at the same time and have similar dimensions), and are given dates ten years apart, but it is obvious that they (or their originals at least, if they are workshop copies) belong together from the many identical elements in them; this makes it more likely that they were part of a series of course, and it would be nice to find the other three senses from the series.

Dorotheum: Flemish School is copy after Rubens (plus a copy after Teniers)

Dorotheum sells on 10 December 2015 a "Flemish School, first half of the 17th century" Adoration of the Magi estimated at 4,000 to 6,000 Euro.

Just like the Abraham Janssens copy from my previous post, this is a copy as well, this time from a Rubens. A bit strange that they didn't notice this or don't mention this. The description is perfect for the original, the copy may well be a bit later. Considering the lack of quality of the copy, I think it will struggle to get the lower estimate.

The same sale also has a "Circle of David Ryckaert III" Dulle Griet, estimated at 1,500 to 2,500 Euro. It is a copy after a David Teniers (already discussed at the time of the sale of another unrecognoised copy of this work).

Third time's a charm for this Teniers?

I blogged in March 2015 on a painting which had been sold in January 2015 at Vanderkindere (Brussels) as "Attributed to Cornelis de Vos" for 5,800 Euro, and was offered at Mercier (France) two months later as a "David II Teniers" with an estimate of 50,000 to 60,000 Euro, which was way too much in my opinion.

Apparently it didn't sell at the time, as it is now for sale at Köller, Switzerland, on 18 September 2015, again as a David II Teniers but with an estimate of 25,000 to 35,000 Swiss Francs, or about half the previous estimate (but still a nice profit). The reasons for the new attribution are basically the same as at the Mercier auction (comparison to the Fondation Custodia portraits), but with (as far as I remember) the added argument that the sitter (or at least her husband) was known to be friends or associated with David II Teniers, and with some further provenance. None of the provenance has any sort of attribution though (the inventory of the sitter's will indicates portraits of her and her husband, but no indication who made them or whether this portrait is the same or not).

The monogram (upper left corner, pictured) is now being described as a "DT F" monogram signature, which (again speaking from memory) wasn't mentioned yet at the Mercier sale, and which looks to me a bit as wishful thinking or circular reasoning; I certainly can't see a "DT" in it. The "F" is quite clear, but the first could be nearly everything. The two examples I found of Teniers monograms were a big, round D with a small T inside.

Strangely, and a bit disappointingly, the provenance only lists a 1936 and 1942 entry, and (unlike other entries in that Köller catalogue) omits the two recent auctions, stating instead that it was "Kürzlich in einer Privatsammlung entdeckt" or "recently discovered in a private collection". I believe that auction catalogues should list all available info, not just the favourable bits. Hiding earlier different attributions is not a good practice...

UPDATE: sold for 24,000 Swiss Francs, just below the lower estimate but still a nice profit. I guess that at least some people were convinced that it truly was a Teniers; I still don't like the work though...

Copy after Teniers

At Lempertz, 16 May 2015, they sell a "Flemish Master, late 17th century" Temptation of St. Anthony, estimated at 5,000 to 6,000 Euro.

No indication is given of the fact that the original hangs in the Louvre, and is by David Teniers II. It obviously is the same composition, but the Louvre one is more finished and detailed, even though it is at 22 by 16cm a bit smaller than the one for sale, which measures 36 by 27,5 cm. It is a good copy, and may be by the Teniers Studio (it certainly is vastly superior to the dozens of Teniers style paintings for sale every month), but it is strange to see no indication of its source at the auction. UPDATE: sold for 10,540 Euro, twice the estimate.

Teniers the Much Younger

One has to wonder, when one encounters copies after recently found originals, or things recently for sale, and the like, whether the ones for sale now are also old copies or new forgeries trying to imitate old copies? Making a poor "after Teniers" copy is obviously much easier than making a fake Teniers, and no one will bother doing any serious tests (like dendrochronology) to test whether it is really an old painting or not...

As an example, of which I don't know whether it is old or not, but where I have my doubts: Fairfield Auctions LLC sells a "Flemish School, 18th century" tavern scene, estimated at $500 to $750. Ticks all the right boxes for a Teniers copy, but for the fact that it has bright colours instead of some murky brown, but that's surely a plus?

The back of the painting is a mess, but surely something that has survived 300 years or so should look like that? Even though it looks like the match between the frame and the painting has only been made very recently, that doesn't mean that the painting can't be old?

On ArtValue, I found a "similar" painting "after Teniers" that sold for 1,500 Euro at Artcurial in 2012. And now we have for sale an image that is completely identical in every detail, but for the second smoker on the left, and the one entering on the right. There is one slight problem with the person entering the pub on the right; he is entering through the fireplace ;-) If you are not sure about this, then check this other Teniers copy, sold at Christie's, which shows the exact same fireplace but now completely.

So, is the one for sale a recent fake? I have no evidence, and I haven't actually handled the painting, but I would be very, very wary of buying such a thing.

Teniers-like Alchemist

At an interesting sale at Galerie Moderne, 17 and 18 March, they are offering an "Alchemist" from the 17th century Flemish School, estimated at 2,000 to 3,000 Euro. It is very similar (though not as well painted) to many David Teniers the Younger works, but I can't match the exact composition. Details like the pottery in the right corner are very similar though. Some details, like the face of the alchemist, are very well done, but overall it looks a bit rushed, unfinished or awkward (the hand of the alchemist, the chair). All in all, it is better and more unusual than most Teniers copies or followers, certainly worth the estimate though probably not much more. UPDATE: sold for 2,000 Euro.

The first Teniers above shows similar compositional elements, while the second has the exact same four main elements on the table (globe, skull, book and hourglass). Other elements can be found in other Teniers works in the same vein. Probably some real Teniers prototype for the painting for sale exists or existed.

The auction has some other nice and interesting paintings, like the above perhaps slightly overestimated Holy Family in a clear Jan Gossart inspired style.

Dulle Griet

It's a poor copy, but it's rather amusing and unusual. At Metz-Noblat, 15 March 2015, they sell a "Flemish school, infernal scene with Cerberus", estimated at only 150 to 250 Euro. While there is a Cerberus, the most prominent feature is the "Dulle Griet" or Mad Meg, made famous by Pieter Breugel the Elder.

The original is by David Teniers the Younger and kept in a private collection. Every week, dozens of paintings after or in the style of Teniers are for sale. Most are equally badly painted as this one, but also utterly boring. It amused me that when for once a more interesting one (subject) comes along, it isn't recognised as such. So if you are a Teniers scholar, this one may interest you. Don't expect a real Teniers of course.

From follower of Teniers to Cornelis de Wael back to follower of Teniers the Younger?

So, a nice, typical "after Teniers" painting is for sale in France now. Better than the countless mediocre "after Teniers" that litter every auction apparently, I tried to see if I could find more info on this one.

Turns out that it was sold (rather dirty) in April for 1,900 Euro (as follower of Teniers) at Lasseron, only to reappear cleaned (as above) at Aguttes in September as a painting by Cornelis De Wael, estimated at 5,000 to 6,000 Euro. Nice ROI, but no one bought it...

So, now it's once again for sale (third thime in less than a year!), back to the old attribution of Follower of Teniers, an with an estimate of 2,500 to 3,500 Euro (original price, costs, and cleaning costs probably), at Doullens, 1 February. Shows that not every sleeper and fast profit works out so well in the end...